No More Nuclear Plants

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"Filipino bishops say Japanese crisis confirms stand against nuclear power

March 17, 2011

The Catholic bishops of the Philippines have issued a statement claiming that the crisis at Japanese nuclear power plans vindicates their opposition to the development of peaceful nuclear power. Bishop Deogracias Iñiquez, who chairs the Filipino bishops’ public-affairs committee, said that “what is happening Japan right now has confirmed our fears.” The bishops’ conference has consistently opposed building nuclear power plants.

There are no nuclear power plants active in the Philippines today. One plant, located near the Mt. Pinatubo volcano, was abandoned in 1986 after the Chernobyl disaster. A new plant has been completed at another site on Bataan, but never put in use. "

And I for one, second the notion. We do not need any more nuclear plants, they are too dangerous.
 
CHRISTINE77 said:
"Filipino bishops say Japanese crisis confirms stand against nuclear power
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For a nation such as the Philippines, this makes sense. Like Japan, it is an island nation which is part of the Pacific Ring of Fire. It is seismically active and subject to tsunamis.

Japan was forced to resort to nuclear power, despite the risks posed by its geography, because its domestic energy sources are meager compared to the needs of its economy. The Philippines does not have such an energy disparity.

That said, nuclear power isn’t necessarily unsafe with proper engineering and careful site location. There are plenty of nations with safe geography and the ability to properly build, maintain and operate a nuclear plant. A problem does exist, however, with long term storage of nuclear waste.
 
Dale_M said:
For a nation such as the Philippines, this makes sense. Like Japan, it is an island nation which is part of the Pacific Ring of Fire. It is seismically active and subject to tsunamis.

Japan was forced to resort to nuclear power, despite the risks posed by its geography, because its domestic energy sources are meager compared to the needs of its economy. The Philippines does not have such an energy disparity.

That said, nuclear power isn’t necessarily unsafe with proper engineering and careful site location. There are plenty of nations with safe geography and the ability to properly build, maintain and operate a nuclear plant. A problem does exist, however, with long term storage of nuclear waste.
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Even long term storage isn’t a huge issue if you use the proper technology. Some breeder reactors produce a waste product with a half-life in the 10 year range, meaning that you only have to store a barrel for about 100 years before it is essentially gone. That is a lot better than the stuff that with million year half-lifes.

Problem is such things are currently banned in the US because plutonium was a scary word and someone convinced politicians during the Carter administration that breeder waste could be used to make weapons (It can’t).
 
PatrickSebast said:
Problem is such things are currently banned in the US because plutonium was a scary word and someone convinced politicians during the Carter administration that breeder waste could be used to make weapons (It can’t).
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Someone should tell that to neocons who are convinced that Teheran’s Research Reactor (used to produce nuclear medicine isotopes) could produce waste that could be turned into weapons-grade material.
 
Dale_M said:
That said, nuclear power isn’t necessarily unsafe with proper engineering and careful site location. There are plenty of nations with safe geography and the ability to properly build, maintain and operate a nuclear plant. A problem does exist, however, with long term storage of nuclear waste.
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That engineering can only be better after the lessons of Japan’s nuclear problems are learned. It’s a setback, sure, but when nuclear energy is again appreciated, it will be advanced.
 
Dale_M said:
For a nation such as the Philippines, this makes sense. Like Japan, it is an island nation which is part of the Pacific Ring of Fire. It is seismically active and subject to tsunamis.

Japan was forced to resort to nuclear power, despite the risks posed by its geography, because its domestic energy sources are meager compared to the needs of its economy. The Philippines does not have such an energy disparity.

That said, nuclear power isn’t necessarily unsafe with proper engineering and careful site location. There are plenty of nations with safe geography and the ability to properly build, maintain and operate a nuclear plant. A problem does exist, however, with long term storage of nuclear waste.
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No, the Philippines has a ridiculous need for power. While its still considered as a third world country, the cities especially Metro Manila is very developed. Some of the largest malls in the world are found in the Philippines (3 of the top 10) including a booming condo market and a thriving Business Process Outsourcing industry with dozens of call centers of many foreign companies. As it is, the Philippines I think is facing another power crisis in the next 3-5 years, that is why there is recent talk of putting up a nuclear plant. There was a power crisis in the early to mid 90s with rolling blackouts because of the lack of power generation. As it is, electricity is ridiculously expensive because the country still has to rely a lot on fossil fuel and coal to generate electricity. The desire for clean and cheap power is strong, but there isn’t a lot of sources for it. Despite the number of dormant volcanoes, there isn’t a push for geothermal power. There isn’t a lot of hydroelectric opportunities as fresh water is scarce. Nuclear is the easiest, but of course the dangers being in a seismically active region is there. Japan was always a great example to convince people that it can be done. That is until a week ago.
 
maybe they should just stop building them near fault lines and volcanoes. smile
 
salusanimarum17 said:
Well, ok. But, how about this:

newsbusters.org/blogs/lachlan-markay/2011/03/17/inconvenient-truth-wind-energy-has-killed-more-americans-nuclear

Interesting.
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Hmm …how quicky one forgets CHERNOBYL!

"The Chernobyl disaster was a nuclear accident that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the Ukrainian SSR (now Ukraine). It is considered the worst nuclear power plant accident in history, and it is the only one classified as a level 7 event on the International Nuclear Event Scale.

The disaster began during a systems test on 26 April 1986 at reactor number four of the Chernobyl plant, which is near the town of Pripyat. There was a sudden power output surge, and when an emergency shutdown was attempted, a more extreme spike in power output occurred, which led to a reactor vessel rupture and a series of explosions. This event exposed the graphite moderator components of the reactor to air, causing them to ignite. The resulting fire sent a plume of radioactive fallout into the atmosphere and over an extensive geographical area, including Pripyat. The plume drifted over large parts of the western Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, and Northern Europe. Large areas in Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia were evacuated, and over 336,000 people were resettled. According to official post-Soviet data,[1][2] about 60% of the fallout landed in Belarus.

The accident raised concerns about the safety of the Soviet nuclear power industry, as well as nuclear power in general, slowing its expansion for a number of years and forcing the Soviet government to become less secretive about its procedures.[3][notes 1]

Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus have been burdened with the continuing and substantial decontamination and health care costs of the Chernobyl accident. More than fifty deaths are directly attributed to the accident, all among the reactor staff and emergency workers. Estimates of the total number of deaths attributable to the accident vary enormously, from possibly 4,000 to close to a million.[4][5] Despite the accident, Ukraine continued to operate the remaining reactors at Chernobyl until 2000, when the last reactor at the site was closed down.[6]"
 
CHRISTINE77 said:
Hmm …how quicky one forgets CHERNOBYL! …
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The article I referenced spoke only about the death of Americans due to wind power and nuclear energy. Were there Americans who died because of Chernobyl? I don’t think so.
 
salusanimarum17 said:
The article I referenced spoke only about the death of Americans due to wind power and nuclear energy. Were there Americans who died because of Chernobyl? I don’t think so.
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Oh so you only care about Americans? Well then why would you care what the Philippine bishops think?
 
CHRISTINE77 said:
We were just extremely lucky in the case of Three Mile Island in PA.
Here is a comparison of what happened to Chernobyl, Fukushima, and Three Mile Island.

It is a very scarey and deadly scenerio when things go wrong at a nuclear plant.

bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-16/comparing-nuclear-events-at-fukushima-chernobyl-three-mile-island-q-a.html
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People don’t seem to understand that Chernobyl isn’t a normal disaster. Chernobyl was simply not safe. It didn’t even meet safety standards when it was built (that’s the Soviet Union for you).

Not to mention that the disaster was basically due to gross human incompetence. In Fukushima, we’re talking about nuclear reactors that have undergone an earthquake, tsunami, explosions, and lack of power for coolant water, and the reports that I’ve seen say that the radiation risk is still fairly low outside of 20-30kms, and will probably dissipate early next week with the restoration of power from the grid this weekend. Basically we threw everything at these plants, and they’re still standing, and there’s been no wide-scale effects and we’ve yet to see anything that will cause long-term effects.
 
curlycool89 said:
People don’t seem to understand that Chernobyl isn’t a normal disaster. Chernobyl was simply not safe. It didn’t even meet safety standards when it was built (that’s the Soviet Union for you).

Not to mention that the disaster was basically due to gross human incompetence. In Fukushima, we’re talking about nuclear reactors that have undergone an earthquake, tsunami, explosions, and lack of power for coolant water, and the reports that I’ve seen say that the radiation risk is still fairly low outside of 20-30kms, and will probably dissipate early next week with the restoration of power from the grid this weekend. Basically we threw everything at these plants, and they’re still standing, and there’s been no wide-scale effects and we’ve yet to see anything that will cause long-term effects.
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And on top of that the problems are coming from a 50 year old reactor.
 
CHRISTINE77 said:
Oh so you only care about Americans? Well then why would you care what the Philippine bishops think?
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I simply added some perspective to this thread and offered another viewpoint, based on data from the USA. You accused me of “forgetting” Chernobyl. I did not, nor did the author of the article. I explained, again, that my data was from the USA so there was no forgetfulness about the USSR. Now you accuse me of not “caring” about anyone other than Americans. Your logic truly escapes me. I have no further comment.
 
CHRISTINE77 said:
Oh so you only care about Americans? Well then why would you care what the Philippine bishops think?
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Philippine bishops have no authority or competence in this matter. They are entitled to their opinion, but that’s all it is.
 
ProVobis said:
That engineering can only be better after the lessons of Japan’s nuclear problems are learned. It’s a setback, sure, but when nuclear energy is again appreciated, it will be advanced.
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The Fukushima plant was built 40 years ago and was engineered to meet the worst case scenario the Japanese thought possible at the time. In fact, the magnitude of what happened was even greater than that … it was the worst quake ever recorded in Japan … yet the plant survived it all. It appears that what caused the problems was not the earthquake or even the tsunami, it was the loss of power to the plant. Even the battery back up system worked for the eight or so hours for which it was installed, but all the generators were destroyed by the tsunami so once the batteries died the pumps quit and the cooling systems stopped working.

If anything, we should take away from this disaster a feeling of just how safe nuclear power plants are. After all, if a 40 year old design survived a 9.0 earthquake and a 25 foot tsunami you really have to wonder what it would take to breach one of those reactors.

Ender
 
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